Can these two 'pissed-off optimists' fix America?

Can a couple of 'pissed-off optimists' apply design thinking to social welfare?

George Aye and his wife, Sara Cantor Aye, launched Greater Good Studio to do good.

When George Aye and his wife, Sara Cantor Aye, started Greater Good Studio in 2011, they assumed clients would beat a path to their door. For one, their mission was unique. Unlike design firms that exist solely to create consumer products, their studio was set up to help social services nonprofits improve the well-being of people most in need.

Second, they had enviable credentials. George, 42, had worked at Ideo, one of the world's top design agencies, before a stint at the Chicago Transit Authority. He's been involved with designing computers, headphones, digital cameras and microphones. He even has a patent on a DNA nanoparticle. "He was a celebrity," Sara says.

She was no slouch, either. Sara, 38, had been with prestigious design firm IA Collaborative and holds a master's degree in design planning from Illinois Institute of Technology.

Both specialize in what is known as human-centered design, a rigorous process championed by Ideo. Its hallmarks include generating a deep, empathic understanding of the user for whom one is designing.

"Our entire business development strategy was just to tell people I worked at Ideo and wait for the applause," he recalls. "I realized, 'Oh, my God, I sound like a bozo,' but also that is not a strategy."

In the seven years since, they've come a long way. Working out of an airy Logan Square loft where cardboard cubicle walls are covered in rainbows of Post-It notes, the firm has nine full-time employees and an enviable roster of clients and projects. Among them is Raising Places, an 18-month program sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the country's largest health-focused philanthropic organization. Greater Good beat eight other firms for the assignment.

Launched in pilot tests in six disparate communities—they range from a Crow reservation in Montana to a downtown San Francisco neighborhood—Raising Places is guiding community groups to figure out ways to create healthier environments for kids. The foundation has "a line (that) your ZIP code is more impactful on your health than your genetic code," says Sara, who is the project lead. "So how do we make places that are healthier?"

The process involves creating a bottom-up approach, talking to the communities, training members how to listen and to lead, coming up with ideas they can rapidly test, securing funding to sustain them locally and, the funders hope, creating a blueprint for other places. "(Greater Good's) thinking about human-centered design and social impact using design principles is rather unique," says Kathryn Wehr, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Despite their success—revenue has increased 31.5 percent a year over the past six years on average—the pair still refer to themselves as "pissed-off optimists," which Sara defines as "someone who is aware and angry about the injustices in the world, yet confident and hopeful in their ability to solve them."